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Retro plates such as this 1970s model could return to California roads. Photo by Davey G. Johnson

Black, blue license plates to return to California roads soon?

March 27, 2012

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In California, plates stay with a car for the duration of its existence. Say, for example, that you purchased a 1983 Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser in Sable Brown. The great and glorious Department of Motor Vehicles would have issued you a plate featuring a 1980s-tastic graphic rendition of a sunset.

If, in 1970, you'd laid down a fistful of ducats a Datsun 240Z or perhaps an LS6-powered Chevrolet Chevelle, the car would've come with a blue plate, which quickly a symbol of the Malaise Era, a time that many Californians would love to forget.

For any vehicle originally bought between 1963 and 1968, a period of glamor and tumult in the Golden State and an era of reliably collectible vehicles, the plate of issuance would've been black with yellow characters, making black-plated cars exceptionally desirable among a certain set of enthusiasts.

If the car ever needed to be replated, the owner was out of luck--stuck with whatever the current license-plate options were at the time--until a few years ago. Currently, if an owner can produce a set of black plates, they can be affixed to any era-correct vehicle.

Assemblyman Mike Gatto--who represents a piece of the San Fernando Valley and the cool-kids Los Angeles enclaves of Atwater Village, Los Feliz and Silver Lake--wants to broaden the program, reissuing black and blue plates, as well as the yellow-with-black-type models first issued in 1956. (Gatto was born in late 1974, just as the first mandated catalytic converters were hitting showroom floors, which might explain his fondness for the blue models.) To that end, he's authored Assembly Bill 1658, which, if passed, would create the Legacy License Plate Program.

Though the new plates would emulate the look of the original black and blue units, they won't be an exact match, reports Hemmings. They'll have to meet current California standards, which means reflective paint. Also unlikely is the stamped “CALIFORNIA” lettering, a hallmark of the originals.

Gatto also wants to open the program to every car, meaning that you could conceivably roll through the streets of San Francisco rocking a blue plate just like Detective Mike Stone's--on, say, a Mitsubishi i.